Marine archeology students and faculty from East Carolina University plan to perform an underwater survey later this summer of two Revolutionary War shipwrecks in Edenton Bay.
The survey will explore the wreck sites, gather artifacts, and provide real-world training for graduate students in shipwreck exploration and documentation.
Edenton Bay provides ideal conditions for training divers. The shallow depths of the bay provide a technologically simpler and safer environment for students. But the low visibility of the harbor’s waters provides challenging conditions for the divers, who must explore the bay’s floor virtually blind.
Edenton Bay’s visibility is hindered by silt and run-off from the shore, while the waters are naturally dark due to their high tannic acid content from cypress roots and other vegetation along the coast.
“There will be an awful lot of scuba diving by students in really dark water conditions, so maybe there will be a little confusion at first,” said ECU Assistant Professor Jason Raupp who, along with about a dozen students and faculty members held a public reception at the Edenton waterfront last Sunday to talk about the project.
“These guys are all pretty new, but I’ve always felt that the reason that our program has been so strong, and we’ve been around for 45 years and have a great reputation for producing field archaeologists, is because we do a lot of training in these dark water environments,” Raupp continued. “We always say that if you can learn to work like this, where your hands become your eyes, you can always work easily where you have good visibility.”
The ECU program provides a summer practicum for graduate students, allowing them to learn skills to augment their studies during the academic year. They will be diving near John’s Island, a long bank of wooded shoreline visible from behind the Herringbone Restaurant and a line of waterfront homes nearby that overlook the bay. Visitors to Waterfront Park can see a pair of orange buoys in the bay marking the bow and stern of the wreck site.
The wrecks have not been identified, but Raupp said he had seen tantalizing clues that tell him they might be related to a local legend. Artifacts recovered from the sites date the wrecks to the Revolutionary War.
“There is a story of a turncoat named Michael Quinn who was in the Continental Army,” Raupp said. “He had enough and decided to ally himself with the British, so he set up a galley type of vessel that operated really well in shallow waters like these and basically set out to harass the local economy. The good people of Edenton had enough and established a quasi-militia. They went out and were able to arrest him.”
Raupp said Quinn apparently came to a bad end following his arrest, but not before he managed to sink two vessels, one craft referred to today as the Burroughs wreck and the other a local trading vessel called the Little John schooner. He said both wrecks are presumed to rest at the bottom of the Edenton Harbor. The Burroughs wreck was discovered in 1980, and the Little John schooner in 1993.
Raupp, staff archaeologist Jeremy Borrelli, Professor Jennifer McKinnon, and diving safety officer Ryan Bradley lead the project.
The wrecks have produced artifacts like military buttons, medicine bottles, barrels, and shoes that date to the Revolutionary period. The students will survey the wrecks and attempt to determine their type, age, and if possible, identity. Raupp said the students will dive on the wrecks for about 10 days this summer. All artifacts recovered at the site will be photographed, documented, and returned to the wreck site in compliance with state law.
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